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From: "Dave Korn" <dave DOT korn AT artimi DOT com>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: Problems after upgrading to 1.5.19-4
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 18:21:55 -0000
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On 09 March 2006 17:51, Larrie Carr wrote:

> From: "Dave Korn" wrote
>> On 09 March 2006 05:45, Larrie Carr wrote:

>>> I had this problem a couple of months ago.  My problem was caused by the
>>> setup.exe being very helpful and (at least for me) defaulting to always
>>> installing the latest version of anything you already had installed.  And
>>> if you don't look at the right page, you don't know this is happening.
>> 
>>  "The right page" would, of course, be the very front page at
>> http://www.cygwin.com/, where it tells you exactly what setup does?

>>  The default /could/ be for setup.exe to do nothing, but that would make it
>> less useful, particularly for newbies who just want to get a cygwin
>> install up and running from scratch.
>
> Don't get me wrong - for every default, there are trade-offs.  In the
> engineering world, the "do not touch what is working" is the normal
> practice.  We may stay a version for a year given that you don't change
> versions in mid stream unless you really have a problem.

  Setup.exe already has that feature.  It's called "not running it".  If
you're really so concerned with validation and stability of your installation,
you should NOT be updating it all the time.  Or indeed ever if at all
practical!

> But the latest is not always the best.  For instance, octave could only be
> compiled with gcc 3.3.3 - but the latest in setup is 3.4.4.  I'm fine with
> 3.3.3 so I don't want to move anytime soon to 3.4.4.
> 
> So any time I add a new package with setup, I have to hit the View button to
> switch to the "Select Packages", muck with the version to "Keep" gcc (but
> you need to do tehm in the right order, or the dependencies cause the Keep
> to flip back to Install or 3.4.4 again) and then hit "Next>".  Otherwise,
> installing something silly like orpie will suddenly move your compiler to
> the next version and that starts to break unrelated things.
>
> For the newbie, it's great.  But you don't see installing a rpm for orpie
> (if one existed) moving your default gcc compiler to a new version.  So it
> means that NOBODY around here gets to use setup.

  No, and now you're making it /really/ clear that you haven't RTFMd.  What
you *actually* have to do is, when you get to the package chooser, click
"Keep".

> If you are going to quote webpages, then I suggest that you add the phrase
> "automatically" to the end of that sentence.

  Why?  Minor tweakings aren't going to make a differnce to the fact that
people often don't trouble to read and understand what's in front of their
eyes; if you skim, you'll miss stuff out.  So I don't think that adding one
easily-missed word is going to make a whole lot of difference.

  Also, I don't think the word 'automatically' is the point here; I think that
the thing that should be clarified is that "new package releases" doesn't just
mean "new packages", but also "new releases of existing packages".  On that I
will agree with you that the phraseology could be more explicit.

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....


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